Google Summer of Code 2018

What is Google Summer of Code?

Google Summer of Code is an annual program in which Google awards stipends to students participating in coding projects for free and open source software projects. Its goal is to get students involved in and familiar with the open source community. phpBB is fully committed to the spirit of open source and aims to provide students with the most immersive experience during the summer. Read more about the program at the Google Summer of Code site.

Getting started

The Google Summer of Code site is a great resource for all information on how GSoC works, the timeline of this years program, and other helpful links like student and mentor manuals as well as answers to frequently answered questions. Please make sure to check first whether you are eligible under the Google Summer of Code terms before applying.

Information for students

Recommended Steps

While not all students necessarily take the same steps while getting involved in projects they are interested in, we do recommend following these steps as a guideline on how to start your involvement with the phpBB team and its community for Google Summer of Code.

Start participating

If you decided to apply to phpBB, or are seriously considering it, you should try to fix a small issue to familiarize yourself with the development process. To be accepted as student you are required to have submitted at least one pull request with a minimum of 10 lines of changed code.

Create a pull request on GitHub and fill out the pull request template. Pull requests with correctly filled out templates will be linked to from JIRA, our tracker.

Request review of your changes on IRC.

Continue involvement

After you fix a bug and submit a pull request, it is always a good idea to stick around and continue being involved with the project.
The recommended way of doing that is being on IRC in #phpbb-dev and periodically checking and perhaps posting on Area51 forums.
This gives phpBB team members an opportunity to talk to you about the changes you submitted in your pull request(s), as well as about
your GSoC application. You will gain a better understanding of how phpBB development happens and will be more prepared for a productive
and successful summer.
Historically speaking, applicants that were active on IRC and started getting involved with the project prior to their application tended to
submit better proposals and were therefore more likely to be selected.

Community Bonding Period

The community bonding period is the first phase after you're accepted as a student in the Google Summer of Code. Hang around IRC and the forums
to get to know better the phpBB community, the phpBB team members, and your mentors for Google Summer of Code. This initial phase helps with
getting to know each other and growing more accustomed to the communication via forum posts and IRC. It can and should also be used to

Coding Period

Once you have laid out a clear schedule during the Community Bonding Period, communication between you and your mentor is vital to the
success of your project. This can be via IRC, e-mail, or any other communication method that you and your mentor agree upon. Daily check-ins are recommended and there should be no more than two days between check-ins with your mentor. These should be kept short: a short e-mail or a message or two on IRC should be enough for these check-ins.
This should be used to keep your mentor informed about:

what you're working on

what you might need help with

how the current progress is

what issues you have encountered

what is going well or not so well

possible changes to a planned implementation or similar

Of course you can and should ask for feedback or code review whenever deemed necessary.

You should also have weekly or biweekly goals to keep your project on track. If you think that your initial estimate was incorrect or your project plan needs some adjustments after the first weeks, discuss the possible changes with your mentor. Ask sooner than later to ensure your projects success over the course of the summer.

Information for mentors

At phpBB we encourage current team members to volunteer as mentors. If you are not or no longer a team member and think you'd be a good mentor, feel free to send a message to gsoc[AT]phpbb[DOT]com.

These are all the people affiliated with phpBB who are assisting with the program as (backup) mentors or (backup) org admins. Their IRC Nicks are listed and you can find them on freenode in #phpbb-dev. They can help you with anything related to the ideas they are mentoring or general GSoC queries.